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■ To increase wages and pensions
■ To stop raising the retirement age
■ To say no to rearmament and invest in healthcare and education
■ To fight against insecure work
■ For genuine industrial and service-sector policies
■ For a fair and progressive tax reform
■ Workers and pensioners have paid 25 billion euros more in taxes
Over the past three years, workers and pensioners have ended up paying 25 billion euros more in taxes due to fiscal drag caused by the lack of indexation of income tax. Net losses range from 700 euros for an income of 20,000 euros to 2,000 euros for an income of 35,000 euros. This blatant fiscal injustice penalises only those with fixed incomes (not those with a flat tax, not capital income, not profits). This mechanism must be stopped at all costs.
■ Healthcare, education, long-term care, housing and safety increasingly neglected
The government has not allocated its additional revenue to social spending. For instance, public healthcare will be affected by this budget, with funding for the National Health Service falling below 6% of GDP in 2028 – the lowest level in decades. Currently, almost 6 million people are already giving up medical treatment, and private healthcare spending by families exceeds 43 billion euros a year.
There are no adequate resources for healthcare, schools, elderly care, the right to housing, public transport improvements, and safeguarding workers’ health and safety. Workers continue to die at the same rate as before, if not more. For weapons, however, money is found, even if it means going into debt.
■ Pensions: the Fornero Law is being tightened even further!
Austerity policies are also affecting social security, with a further increase in the retirement age, which will impact 99% of workers. All forms of retirement flexibility are being removed (including the already inadequate “opzione donna” and “various quota” schemes). In terms of pensions, Meloni and Salvini have done an even worse job than the previous Monti and Fornero Government.
■ More and more young people are leaving Italy
The country's condition is worsening day by day: economic growth is at “zero point something”, now close to recession; deindustrialisation has been continuing for three years; employment is growing only for those over 50, while it is shrinking and increasingly insecure for younger generations, with hundreds of thousands of girls and boys leaving Italy in search of decent work and a better life. This is the real state of the country, which the Government is doing absolutely nothing to address.
■ Objectives of the general strike
The general strike has two objectives: to support all categories in the disputes with employers over the renewal of expired contracts, because wages must be raised first and foremost through collective bargaining; to launch a genuine substantive dispute with the Government to change the Budget Law based on our demands.
■ What we are asking for:
▪ the compensation of fiscal drag and its elimination for the future;
▪ the renewal of all national private-sector labour contracts and additional resources for public-sector contracts to defend and strengthen purchasing power, alongside genuine tax relief on wage increases for everyone;
▪ the strengthening and extension of the “fourteenth month” payment for pensioners;
▪ stopping the automatic increase in the retirement age for all, greater flexibility in retirement and a guaranteed contributory pension for precarious and intermittent workers;
▪ real industrial policies for manufacturing and service sectors, to innovate our production system, manage the environmental and digital transition, protect employment and create new quality jobs;
▪ safeguarding health and safety at work, including by reforming the procurement system;
▪ fight insecure work, low-paid, undeclared and exploitative labour;
▪ strengthening the public service system: healthcare, education and research, long-term care, housing emergency, the right to
study and public transport;
▪ resources for reforms in the areas of long-term care, disability and local social assistance and policies to support parenthood;
▪ an extraordinary plan for the recruitment and stabilisation of precarious work in the public sector;
▪ investments and measures to eliminate gender gaps in employment and pay;
▪ a genuine strategy for reviving Southern Italy (“Il Mezzogiorno”).
■ Let's take the money from where it actually is and say No to the reckless arms race
To achieve all of this, there are two essential conditions.
First, find the money where it is (profits, extra profits, major wealth and tax evasion) including by requesting a solidarity contribution from the richest 1% of the population, in order to finance policies that benefit the remaining 99%. Our proposal would guarantee an additional 26 billion euros per year to fund everything we are calling for, starting with healthcare.
Secondly, stop the reckless arms race, which aims to convert the Italian and European economy into a war economy, draining an enormous amount of resources away from the country's true economic and social priorities. For Italy alone, that would mean almost €1 trillion if the Government genuinely intends to reach 5% of GDP on defence spending by 2035.
